I split my banking between two Canadian banks. One for everyday banking with a HELOC for investment. The other is an online discount brokerage account.

Every couple of years, the everyday banker calls to see if they can be of assistance with offers on their products.

I’ve never had the parent Bank of my brokerage account call with an offer.
I was curious and had him go over the service he was offering.
Of course he wanted all my business.

As to the portfolio management, they still recommend GICs and very conservative ETF’s for dividend income. A certain percentage was invested to juice the portfolio. When prompted he said last year those in my “Risk category” (High Risk) had anywhere from 20-30% appreciation. Some higher. Very little was allocated to Precious Metals in his managed client’s accounts. Only if the client insisted. I told him the account we were talking about was 90% PM’s and the rest Resources. He was not recommending more than 5% PM’s. I could tell on the phone that he probably thought I was crazy.

I have DRIP accounts for dividend appreciation outside the brokerage which I have had for years and never gets touched. It’s been churning out a steady 10-15% return depending upon the year.

I do see the advantage of parking income generated through the year in a short term deposit until a client either re-allocates the funds or makes a withdrawal.

The takeaway from the conversation was the retail investor is not yet in PMs. This advisor still believes it’s too risky. He only handles high net worth clients. After a day like today , I could see his point but apparently we have a long way to go before the public enters the space.